Kastos

It wasn’t a glassy calm when we left Port Leone on the morning of Wednesday 13^th August but it was very nearly so. Athos had left and hour or so before us and was nowhere to be seen, even on the AIS. We motored southeast to a beautiful bay on the southern end of Kastos island to anchor for a swim and lunch. Though the bay doesn’t feature in our Greek Waters Pilot, we weren’t the only yacht to visit it and we followed an Italian yacht in, anchoring a little astern of them in about 10m of very clear, blue water. We swam, admiring the highly ‘squiggled’ layered rock on the shoreline and the individual ‘blades’ of the layers just below the surface. Nicky saw a couple of a new type of fish (for us); they were very orange and looked a little like goldfish.

There was no wind in the afternoon either so we continued our motor around the coast to Kastos village. By the time we arrived all the moorings on the quay from which you could walk ashore had been taken. The only available option was to anchor in the middle of the harbour and take a long-line ashore to the beach. From the water it wasn’t obvious to what the lines were being tied. From ashore, however, it was very clear. I’m not sure what the local electricity company thinks of this technique – maybe they charge ground rent!

We decided that if we had to inflate the dinghy to get ashore we might as well anchor on our own terms in the bay to the northeast, rather than risk someone in the harbour dislodging our anchor when they arrived or departed. It seems that the water all around Kastos is very clear: we anchored in 10.5m and could easily see that our anchor had dug in well.

Kastos village is small but pretty and we went ashore to explore and catch up with emails etc in the cool of the evening. The taverna at the top of the hill, Chef John’s, has a row of industrial washing machines and tumble driers at the entrance and advertises a full wash and dry in an hour (and a discount off your meal too). We just had ice-cold beers, used the Wi-Fi and enjoyed the view. We couldn’t see BV from the patio but got the typical Greek scene of goats and olive trees (with BV in the distance) from the road outside the tavern.

As we had motored up the eastern coast of Kastos towards the port, we had seen Athos anchoring just outside a bay in which we had considered stopping. The following morning we again heard the roar of the ‘badly tuned outboard engine’ and came on deck to see Athos’ microlight taking to the skies again. This time the aircraft disappeared off for a short while (recce-ing another anchorage?) and then flew down to where we were anchored, landed and taxied up to the Italian yacht that had been moored next to us in Port Leone. It had been clear when we were in Port Leone, that the people on that yacht knew someone/some people on Athos. Now, the microlight pilot took 4 of the Italian family on short rides on his aircraft and we had ringside seats for all the landings.

The air experience trips ended as the wind started to fill in. Athos left her anchorage but, from the short time that the microlight had been airborne, checking out their next anchorage, it seemed unlikely that we would end up anchored close to her again. Our next planned passage was to be quite a bit longer than our recent ones – 35nm out of the Ionian and into the Gulf of Patras to Mesolónghion.

Kastos